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Thursday, 3 February 2011

Hot & Sour Chicken Noodles

Happy new year. 2011 is the Chinese year of the Rabbit and what better way to celebrate than to eat a big steaming bowl of noodles. Noodles are traditionally eaten at this time of year as they symbolise longevity so as long as you don't go snipping them, slurp away for a long life.

This particular recipe is a bastardisation of the ever excellent Sunflower's Chongquing suan la fen. I omitted ingredients that I couldn't find and instead replaced them, as well as skipping steps because I was too hungry to spend the extra time. Still, it was excellent; sourness coming from the pickled mustard greens (zha cai), spiciness from the chilli bean paste, all tempered with a little sugar and then ramped up with some fresh chillis.

Sweet potato starch noodles were slippery and slithery, and an odd burst of greenery gave welcome crunch.

Soak the sweet potato noodles in boiling water until cooked. Meanwhile, deskin the thighs and remove the bone and pulse with the ginger until coarsely minced.

Rinse the pickled vegetable and set to one side. Heat some oil in a wok and add the garlic, minced. Add the chicken and the chillis chopped up and stir fry until there is no pink left in the meat. Add the chilli bean paste and stir fry until everything is coated. Throw in the pickled vegetables, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar and the chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, steam your vegetables until they're cooked.

To assemble, place the noodles in the bowl and top with the vegetables. Add the chicken mixture on top with half the broth per bowl. Finally, drizzle the sesame oil on top and garnish with spring onion.

this is one of my favourite type of meals in the world- noodles- spicy- so, so good. love it, Lizzie! am salivating at the thought of preparing this. wishing you a happy chinese new year. hope you got lots of little red bags with money inside! x shayma

Happy New Year of Chinese. I like this quisine. Of course, delicious. Vermicelli in this picture use rice vermicelli ... in my country, it is called as bih-un. Well, did you get lot of money with red envelope?